Why (Modern) Roman Catholic Music Sucks so Much

Now that I have got your attention, I will attempt to answer the question posed above.

At first, I simply thought that it was simply because the texts which have been translated into English were so poorly translated. After all, our Lord said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. And it was Mark Twain who said that a camel was a horse created by a committee. It is an obvious conclusion (at least to those who have drunk enough) that it is easier for a text written by committee to express the will of the Holy Spirit (other, of course, than an ecumenical counsel which specifically requested the aid of that Spirit) than it is for a rich person to enter into heaven. Or something like that.

Since the ICEL is one of the most uninspired and uninspiring committees that I have observed in the existence of recorded history, I thought that that was sufficient to explain the phenomenon. When both the eminent Fathers Zuhlsdorf and O'Leary are agreed on something, it must be beyond dispute.

Nonetheless, it would appear that other than some of the lamest translation into English that I have ever seen since the Norton Anthology of English Literature, there may be another reason besides the ICEL translations why Modern Roman Catholic Music sucks so much.

I mean to say, after all, we do have a number of good composers of liturgical music up and about these days. Henrik Gorecki is doing a capable job, as are Arvo Part, Ivan Moody, Sergei Glagolev, and even Sir John Tavener. The point is that all of them are Orthodox, and not Roman Catholic, composers.

However, all of these composers have two things going for them. The first is that they have decent translations to work with. Gorecki is working with Latin, Part is working with Slavonic, and the others are working with decent translations into English, Spanish and Portuguese. Even Sir John Tavener is working with the mock Elizabethan of the late Isobel Hapgood, which is better by far than anything that ICEL could muster.

But there is another factor. Everyone except ICEL puts their texts online, and allows you to use their texts without a hefty demand for royalties. Try googling liturgical texts for the Book of Common Prayer, or the Orthodox Church in America, or the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. Hell, try accessing the Southern Baptists or the Presbyterians. No difficulty, and no problem.

Then try finding any online texts for ICEL. Good luck. Or perhaps I should say, fat chance. Some good people have attempted to put ICEL texts online so that people could actually see what they said (or more to the point, did not say.) In each case, the minions of ICEL acted to make them take those texts off the internet. How transparent. How communicative. How helpful.

But the real killer is what the ICEL charges in royalties. I took the opportunity to access the ICEL's statement on copyright, which includes their sample contract, which they impose on anyone so foolish to attempt to use their texts in a liturgical setting. Basically, if you were to use ICEL texts exclusively for a musical setting, ICEL charges between 10% and 11% of the price of the text as their share of royalties.

I will beg to point out that the standard in which most choral music publishers give to composers is 10 percent. In other words, if a composer were so foolish as to use an ICEL text for his or her work, all of the royalties would go to ICEL, instead of the composer. Is it any wonder why composers are somewhat less than willing to use ICEL texts?

But wait: it gets even better. The Sample Contract (which is on and after page 20 of the PDF text) states in Section 7 of the Contract that if anyone fails to pay royalties on the disputed text, that they forfeit all rights under the contract. In short, that means that all rights to their work goes to ICEL. How Christian. How generous of them.

But wait, there's more: Under section 9 of the Sample Contract, in the event that the Publisher fails to keep the publication in print, the contract is void, and ICEL gets all rights in the work. Oh, yes, and under section 16 of the Sample Contract, in the event that the publisher becomes insolvent or bankrupt, all rights revert to ICEL as well.

I don't know about you, but it looks as though ICEL's prophetic leadership strongly resembles the Gospel according to Geffen.

And I don't know about you, but it would appear to me that any composer of choral music with an IQ above room temperature is likely to tell ICEL where they can pound sand. I would not blame them.

And for the author of the estimable blog, Do Geese See God, I would have to tell him that, for the foregoing reasons, I doubt that he will see good musical settings of the propers of the English Novus Ordo anytime soon. I am terribly sorry about that.